Excerpt from The Empire in Africa: Labour's Policy

As politically Labour becomes better organised and more powerful it is being necessarily compelled more and more to consider and to formulate a policy with regard to a number of problems not immediately connected with industrial and economic domestic questions/ The time may be not far distant when Labour will be called upon to assume responsibility for the Government of the country. It must therefore be prepared with a policy, worked out in some detail, applicable to all the wider problems of our society and government. Such a policy should in each case be most carefully considered; it must spring directly from the broad economic and political and social principles and ideals of Labour, and it must be worked out in sufficient detail, and in a practical manner, so that Labour may, as soon as it has the power, take the first steps to put it into operation.

One such problem, to which Labour has hitherto naturally given little detailed attention, is the Empire. About a quarter of the earth and over one-quarter of the earth's inhabitants are included within the British Empire. Of the 435 million inhabitants of the British Empire only about 65 millions, in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, enjoy any kin-d of responsible government; the remaining 370 millions have practically no control over their governments, which are ultimately responsible to the British Cabinet, the imperial Parliament at Westminster, and the electorate of the United Kingdom, which numbers about 21 million persons. The government which has been applied to the various Dependencies, Crown Colonies, and Protectorates in Asia and Africa differs considerably from place to place. Politically, Labour must now have an imperial policy, springing from Labour principles and applicable in each locality. In this pamphlet we shall consider the problem of what should be. The policy of Labour with regard to the Empire in Africa. But we shall consider only those parts of our African Empire which are governed as Crown Colonies or Protectorates. In other words we shall omit the Union of South Africa, since it is a self-governing Dominion, and we shall omit Egypt, since the problem of its government is in Africa unique, and should either be considered separately or in conjunction with the problem of Indian government.

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